Two-Bit Heroes

by Doris Egan

  wiped her brow with one arm and bent to straighten the shimmering tablecloth. Stereth turned and watched her, his face unreadable. "If it happens, it happens," he said.

  Gods.

  He gave me back my hand and stood up. "Will you need help with the silverware?"

  "No."

  "Good." He went off to supervise the decorating.

  Ran left his hammer at the top of the ladder and came over to me. "You'll be all right, Theodora. You're a Cor-mallon, you can do anything you have to." He kissed me and went back to work.

  My friends and allies, concerned for my welfare. Eager to share their alien views of life.

  I didn't think they would work for me. I would have to stumble through this the best I could and hope to scrape some method or meaning from it later.

  Cantry had somehow gotten missids, the little fishes from the southern rivers, brought in still fresh for the banquet. You almost never saw fish on the Plateau; it was always steermod beef—fried, ground, grilled, broiled. Cut up in chunks in soup and stew. In thin strips with eggs for breakfast. Across the table I saw Dramonta cast a pleased look on his dish of missids.

  Tarniss Cord said to me, from the fringed and embroidered cushion by my left, "Your band has outdone itself."

  "They're a resourceful bunch," I said.

  Cantry was supervising the service. She stopped by my cup and poured tah from a four-legged, blue-and-white porcelain tah pot. She gave me a reassuring smile before she passed on to Des.

  Jacik sat on Des' right. He was a tall, very dark-skinned man, whom rumor had was Dramonta's food taster. I could hear him and Des talking about the latest news of flyer races in the capital. Des said something low, and they both laughed. Across the table, I noted that Dramonta didn't take any particular item from the communal bowls until Jacik had consumed it first.

  Ran was seated further down the row on my side; I couldn't see him. I was very aware of the knife inside my robe.

  "Were you born on Ivory?" asked Tarniss Cord. "If I don't trespass on your privacy."

  "No. I was born a long way away from here."

  "You've adapted excellently. Your accent is perfect."

  "Thank you."

  "Our well actually worked out, by the way. That's Death-well water in the tah."

  "Oh, really."

  It was hard to concentrate on the conversation. I let it peter out naturally and he turned to his friend on his other side. Meanwhile Des, free of responsibility, chatted to the food-taster on his right with his usual ease.

  Somewhere around the fourth course, I saw Jacik looking restlessly around the table. Des, alert, said, "What is it?"

  "The wine bottle. I'm dry, and the little white-haired barbarian seems to have vanished."

  Des put out his hand to block Jacik from rising. "Don't move, I'll get it. You're our guest."

  He retrieved the bottle from the other end of the table and poured for Jacik.

  Jacik sipped the unmixed wine and said, "You're a sporting gentleman, Des."

  "Least I could do for a fellow player. Here's to the Jade Bar."

  They drank to the Jade Bar racers. A little while later, Jacik's winebowl slipped from his hands and fell to the table. "I'm sorry," he said. "It's not cracked, is it?"

  Des examined the bowl and sopped up the red dregs that had spilled over onto the table. "Nah, it's fine. They can take a lot of hard living, these bowls."

  "Like us," said Jacik, and Des laughed. He poured more wine. Jacik picked up the bowl again and raised it to his lips, then watched in blank puzzlement as it slipped from his fingers again. This time the spilled wine ran onto his robe.

  Des interrupted. "You fellows from the Deathwell plain aren't used to the pure spirits, are you? You can't just tilt it back like you're drinking the mixed kind and expect nothing to happen."

  "Look, I'm not some kid. I've been drinking this stuff for…" He looked suddenly unhappy. "I don't feel too well."

  "Sit back, take a few breaths. Want me to help you with your collar?"

  "No, I…" He tried to stand. "Kanz—" His eyes went across the table to Dramonta Sol's.

  Dramonta put his palms on the tabletop. He tried to push himself to his feet. He fell back again. He reached inside his jacket; when his hand came out I saw the glint of a small pistol.

  I blinked. A dagger had sprouted from his neck. I looked down the table; most of the guests were unaware that anything had happened yet. Des was doing something underneath the tablecloth, and Jacik's mouth was gulping open and closed like a fish. His head slumped. Des pushed out a hand to keep him upright, and I saw it was red.

  Somebody screamed. Other people were yelling, and still other people were telling them to be quiet. Dramonta's six lieutenants were sprawling on the table. Of our own band, Lazarin, sitting beside Stereth, was also dead. Dramonta's aim had probably been off. Finally I turned to Tarniss Cord. His eyes were fixed and intense, his fist was clenched around a fork, he was breathing hard; but he wasn't moving.

  Thank the gods. I'd forgotten about him entirely.

  Stereth's voice came tersely from the other end of the table. "Cord, you'd better send somebody out to make sure Marainis Cho doesn't come in."

  "Right," said Tarniss Cord. He tapped the man to his left on his shoulder and stood up. They both left the room.

  I started to get up myself, but my legs wouldn't support me. I thought vaguely: It could be poison, but it feels like nerves. I was aware of Des getting up, moving away somewhere, then coming back and standing behind me. "Little tymon, you're shaking like a leaf in a high wind."

  "Speak for yourself, Des."

  Des held out a hand and observed it as it trembled. "Yeah." He swung down onto the pillow beside me. "Considering how excitable I get normally, you may have to pull me down from the walls soon. I feel like my heart is about to jump right out of my chest and do calisthenics on the table." His feet, I noticed, were tapping to a staccato rhythm of their own. For all his brawling, Des was not naturally violent in any final sense. He was a card-cheat, a

  liar, a boaster, and a heavy drinker; but when it came to cold applied violence it went against all his instincts, and the effort involved showed in his body.

  I said to him, "It was poison, wasn't it? Where was it? We shared everything, didn't we?"

  "The tah pot. It's a special pot, the kind the nobility uses—pours from a second compartment when you touch it right. They use it for their games. Sembet told us about it."

  "Nobody warned me."

  "Sweetheart, only the people involved knew. Although you were kind of involved. You knew your own role." He took a deep breath and added, "It was konoberry juice. Sembet recommended it. He said hardly anybody uses it anymore. That's because it doesn't kill at once, it paralyzes the legs first and then the hands… that's why I couldn't let Jacik try to get up—" Des was on a talking jag.

  I said, "Konoberry juice is purple."

  "Not when you take the skin off the fruit and distill it, it isn't. It's clear."

  Stereth was walking down the center aisle. "I want this place cleaned up, now. I don't want any of the other bands seeing what happened, it'll affect their judgment." Stereth's voice was the same one he used for assigning water duty; no trembling there that I could see.

  Des looked up wearily. "They'll know—"

  "Knowing and seeing are two different things. Help Tymon with Dramonta's body. Sokol, start washing down the floor. We don't want the blood to set."

  Ran rose to his feet and started for the waterjugs, an expression of revulsion on his face. Stereth caught it. He put out his hand and took hold of Ran's arm as he passed. Ran waited.

  "If you'd given us the benefit of your sorcery, this day would have been less bloody." For the first time a hint of intensity had crept into Stereth's voice.

  I had a strong, disorienting sense of deja vu, then realized why: This was the scene I'd witnessed in the cards. Only now I could hear it as well as see it.

  Stereth still h
ad hold of Ran's arm. He said, "Satisfied?"

  "This has nothing to do with me."

  "No? Dabbler… dilettante… here on the Plateau for a holiday. I gave you a chance to help us avoid this."

  "This?" Ran glanced around the dining hall, at the bloody silken cushions, at the overturned winebowls and scattered fruit, and a look of contempt came over his face. "This would have happened in any case. You were set on killing these people. If I'd helped, it would only have been… neater."

  "Lazarin might still be alive."

  Ran made no reply to that unanswerable sentence. They glared at each other, frozen, Stereth's hand still clamped around Ran's arm. I could feel the tension from where I sat. Just then Lex appeared at the other end of the hall. As he strode forward he called, "Stereth?"

  "What?" Stereth didn't move a muscle.

  "Cord's outside. What do you want me to do to him?"

  "With him, Lex. With him, not to him. I seem to be having trouble getting you to understand that we're allies."

  "Well, how long do you think we'll be allies?"

  "Until one of us decides that we aren't." Stereth let go of Ran's arm. He turned to face Lex.

  "You didn't say what you want me to do with him."

  "Ask him what he wants."

  "He wants to see you."

  "Then send him in."

  Lex turned and started walking back down the hall. Then he said, "Oh! What about Marainis Cho?"

  "I'll need to see her, too, when we're ready. She speaks for Dramonta's band now."

  "She's outside right this minute. She knows what happened."

  "Well?"

  Ran spoke. "No doubt the lady is reluctant to come in."

  Lex's glance went to Ran, then back to Stereth. He said, "She said to tell you she thinks an alliance would be a fine idea. She wants to be sure you understand that before we go any further."

  The corner of Stereth's mouth turned up. "Tell her I understand," he said. "And that we would be honored by her presence. And that I hope she'll come in."

  Lex went back outside. Ran said, "I have things to do." He walked away from Stereth and went to help drag the bodies off the cushions. Stereth watched him.

  I'd thought that I'd forgotten that run of the cards, find-

  ing the deck's visions, as they could sometimes be, less than helpful in our personal lives. But I must have been more aware of that card than I'd realized, because now I felt its lack. Life in the Sector had been easier than it should have been for me. I'd believed that Ran, at least, was safe. But he was no longer protected by the future, he was as vulnerable as everybody else, and a glance around the killing floor was enough to see that that was very vulnerable indeed. And seeing the look on Stereth's face, I knew it was even worse than that.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I was awakened two nights later at the monastery fort by a hand over my mouth. I realized almost at once it was Ran.

  I sat up, looked at him kneeling in the shadows by my pallet, and realized as well that this was serious. He stood. I followed him to the door, knowing that any sprawled bodies I stepped over—if they had any awareness of me at all—would assume I was heading for the privy. Or if they saw two figures, they'd assume we were looking for privacy; it happened often enough.

  Outside the door, Fire Moon cast a ruddy tinge on the landscape. I'd only been asleep a couple of hours; the second moon was still below the horizon. It was quiet. I could hear some of the mounts moving about in their stalls.

  Ran's hand emerged into a sliver of moonlight, then vanished again, as he rubbed his head tiredly. "There isn't time for us to talk," he said. "I have some things I need to do. Give me twenty minutes and meet me by the trees at the entrance to the valley."

  "What is it? This is it, isn't it? Do you think Stereth's going to—"

  "Twenty minutes. I'll explain everything."

  I glanced up toward the roof and said, "If I get that far from the fort, the lookouts will spot me."

  "No, they won't." He said it with finality.

  There is a tone people get in their voices when they are very serious. Once, when I was six, my crechemates and I were on holiday at Gold Sands, on Pyrene, and there was a coromine leak at a plant next door. One of our supervisors came to the edge of the pool where I was swimming, put out her hand, and said, "Theodora, come out." It was customary for us kids to wait until the grownups' thirtieth or fortieth call until we left the pool. And the supervisor

  didn't yell or seem upset; but I went straight to the pool-steps and climbed out and took her hand, and we headed upwind for Medical.

  I said to Ran, "Twenty minutes." As easy as that.

  And he disappeared, satisfied, into the shadows.

  I sat near the door, listening to the mounts, the wind in the grass, and the fullness of silence on the Plateau. I was looking oft in the direction of the twisted trees. It was time, there was no denying that; it was plain in Stereth's eyes that Ran's deferment was at an end. Maps and waterbags notwithstanding, the deadline was upon us. After a while I got up and peered into the dimness of the main hall: Clusters of sleeping bodies in the worn and dirty clothes of Sector outlaws, their flashy colors and jewelry invisible under the cover of night. If this was really our bid for freedom, I could approve it intellectually, but for a second I was close to tears. They looked so vulnerable lying there.

  Then I turned around and started walking up the track toward the trees.

  I was not alone when I got there. A Plateau farmer, late-middle-aged, wearing a navy jacket and cap, sat smoking a pipe. His back was against one of the trees. I knew his jacket was navy because I could see it in the light of the cinders from his pipe. He smiled a smile of pleased innocence when he saw me.

  "Honored by this meeting," he said in a rusty voice. He blew some smoke out slowly and patted the grass beside him. "Care to join me, gracious lady?"

  "Thanks, I'm waiting for someone." Had Ran arranged for transportation with this man? "Uh, is there a reason why you're here? Not that I mean to criticize."

  "I always get restless at Fire Moon. Sometimes I go nightherb gathering."

  "This isn't a very wise place to gather herbs, gracious sir."

  He smiled, this time slyly. "How can you say that, my lady? I see three types of jevetleaf within a few steps of where we sit."

  I bit my lips, wondering how to warn him off. What the hell was he doing here, anyway? There wasn't a farm in miles.

  "I appreciate your concern, though, Theodora," he added.

  I met his eyes. Amusement, pleasure in success, delight in his own ability… I wouldn't mistake that ego anywhere. "Ran," I said, with certainty. His lips started to turn up, and I punched him in the arm.

  "Hey! What's that for?"

  "For being a royal pain."

  "That's not fair, Theodora. I had to know the illusion worked, and I couldn't very well ask one of the outlaws, could I? It was a necessary test."

  I considered punching him again. "Sherlock Holmes used to give the same excuse to Doctor Watson, and I always thought he deserved a good thrashing for it, too."

  He rubbed his upper arm and said, "I have no idea what you're talking about. I never heard of a sorcerer named Sherlock in my life." He gave me an aggrieved look. "We've got a long way to go tonight, and since we'd never get away with taking mounts from the stable, we'll have to travel on foot. Do you think you're up to it?"

  "You ask me now? Would you like to share with me where we'll be going?"

  "Kynogin. You know the way, and it's the closest place for us to get some transport. It's also the first place Stereth would have us looked for, but we won't get away fast enough by walking."

  "Glad you've got this worked out. What about the pas-sersby in Kynogin? How are you going to maintain an illusion in several dozen minds at once?"

  His farmer's features were proud. "It's not a planted illusion, Tymon, it's projected—attached to me personally. It'll hold for anybody who looks at me. Remember that assignment
we had a couple of years back for the Gold Coin House, attaching illusions to the bed-performers?"

  "Wait a minute. It can't be done." I did remember the commission from the Gold Coin house, and it had taken weeks of Net work, calculations, measurements—we'd brought in extra staff—"I don't believe that even you could hold all those calculations in your head."

  "Theodora, darling, how do you think sorcerers worked before the Net was brought in? I used paper. Stolen from Stereth's supply, chucked in several holes in the wall as I

  went along. Lucky nobody used those particular rocks when we were mending the roof."

  "I haven't seen you scribbling on any papers."

  "The suspicion in your tone is ill-deserved, sweetheart. I had to do a lot of the initial calculating in my head, and transferred it to writing whenever the opportunity arose."

  He had been looking rather abstracted. And he'd spent a lot of evenings sitting around the fire like a silent lump, but I'd thought he was meditating. I mean, with Ran, how can you tell?

  Still, it was an amazing achievement. A projected illusion— sometimes called a grounded illusion—is grounded in actuality, with any number of measurements taken of the person's body, and the differences between those measurements and that of the completed product figured down to the last decimal point. You have to short-cut a lot with formulae, of course, or you'd be measuring forever, but even those take incredible time and attention. It's a thousand times harder than a planted illusion, because the work is all done by the sorcerer. With the planted kind, the work is done by the viewer, who fills in the blanks.

  There was no reason he should lie about it, but it was just so unexpected. Not to mention bordering on superhuman. I said warily, "How did you do the measuring?"

  "Stereth has a tape he uses to work out map distances. I borrowed it and cut a long piece of paper and marked it to scale. Then I just had to compensate for the unit/ centimeter differences. Simple."

  Simple. Any minute now he would tell me he'd also taught the mounts to talk in his spare time and got directions to Shaskala from them.

  I felt like an idiot. A lonely idiot. How could he do this to me?

  "You didn't think to mention you were working on this?"